Low & Outside: AL Notes

Major League Baseball just drew its biggest weekend crowds in three years, boosted by sellouts at Chicago's Wrigley Field, Boston's Fenway Park and Oakland's Coliseum, as well as Colorado and Seattle: Nearly 1.65 million fans attended games.

Commissioner Bud Selig said the totals help show interleague play is still popular with fans. We're big fans of interleague (come on, it's cool to see the Phillies play the Mariners in drizzly Seattle and realize the fans there are still wearing hoodies to Safeco Field in late June), but we think it might be the matchups that were the draw.

At Wrigley, the Cubs set a three-game attendance record aided the New York Yankees. The A's had the world champ San Francisco Giants. OK, Colorado at home against Detroit - that might have been the lure of interleague, with Tigers ace Justin Verlander visiting the Rockies. Boston? It was probably the red-hot Red Sox rather than the Milwaukee Brewers filling the venerable venue. As for Seattle - well, there was a lot of red in the Safeco stands.

Wisdom on interleague play from White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, whose team is taking on crosstown rivals at U.S. Cellular Field starting Monday: "When the games start against the Cubs, it's a different ball game."

Cleveland fans looking for Orlando Cabrera as the Indians opened their series with the Colorado Rockies Monday must have done a double take. After 15 major-league seasons and 1,900 games, Cabrera was at a new position for No. 1901 - third base.

Cabrera, who has played 1,804 games at short and 96 at second, never played third even in the minors. But manager Manny Acta, who said the Indians discussed the possibility of Cabrera playing third when they signed him as a free agent in February, stated that he was confident the veteran could handle it.

Acta was right. It was catcher Lou Marson who committed the Tribe's one error in an 8-7 loss to the Rox.